


Doors

by ninaarcher



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Asexual Character, F/F, embarrassing roommate Jean, side of berujean, update this changed from lowkey ace Annie to highkey ace Annie, which I originally planned to give its own chapter but finals and it'll happen eventually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-10
Updated: 2015-12-10
Packaged: 2018-05-05 22:18:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5392355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninaarcher/pseuds/ninaarcher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Note to self</i>, Sasha thinks as the four of them stand in awkward silence in the living room of the apartment. <i>Never ever let anything like this happen again.</i></p>
<p>In which Sasha meets a girl and discovers a little (lot) more than she ever really needed to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doors

**Author's Note:**

> I promised this months ago and promptly forgot to post it, so it probably needs more editing than finals will let me give it. Give me a week or two and I'll have a better version up. Feedback always appreciated, or else I run the risk of accidentally deleting the best line in the story and forgetting what it was.
> 
> EDIT 14 Jun 2017: yooooooo new and improved and also longer first chapter! it's still longer than most of the papers I wrote in college.

_ Note to self, _ Sasha thinks as the four of them stand in awkward silence in the living room of the apartment.  _ Never  _ ever _ let anything like this happen again. _

 

 

 

It starts out pretty simply; Sasha meets Annie at the campus Starbucks, on a frigid December morning halfway through pre-exam hell week, when Sasha has had more caffeine than is reasonable for six in the morning and Annie clearly hasn’t had enough, if the glare she’s shooting the brunette is any indication.

 

“Do you think,” the blonde hisses coolly, “you could stop  _ vibrating _ while there are people within five feet of you.” It’s not a request.

 

Sasha, excitable but not by nature malicious, immediately takes that as an invitation to start a conversation. “I just don’t know why they put all of this stuff on us  _ right before finals, _ ” she complains. “Every professor on this campus knows that every one of their students has at least one stupid final, and let’s be real, the only people who have fewer than four are the part timers. Not that there’s anything  _ wrong _ with being a part timer,” she adds in a rush which, thanks to the last cup of coffee at about two A.M, breaks her standing record for being as understandable as it is quick, because what if this stone-silent (drop-dead gorgeous) blonde is a part time student and oh  _ god, _ what if she’s offended and she thinks Sasha is insulting her and–

 

“You’ve got a point.” The blonde is just as cool as before, but the early-morning venom is gone from her voice, and her even tone calms the caffeine-and-panic rush to Sasha’s brain. “It seems more than a little sadistic.”

 

Sasha beams, beyond excited that she hasn’t pissed off her Starbucks-line companion, and holds out a tremoring hand. “I’m Sasha Braus,” she declares. “Third year nursing major.” Which completely justified the unholy amount of coffee, if you asked Sasha. Between anatomy labs and the frustrating lab partners that came with them, Sasha had lately been keeping later nights than she liked to acknowledge.

 

The blonde took her hand and shook it exactly twice before letting it go. “Annie Leonhardt. Third year. Psychology major with a minor in Literature.” Annie is taken a little off guard by the speed with which Sasha grabs her arm and leans in, brown eyes wide, but she doesn’t let it show, merely looking confused and a little concerned for the state of Sasha’s balance.

 

“Psychology? No way! I wonder if we’ve had any classes together, you know they say that you pretty much graduate with a psych minor if you’re a nursing major. Do you have Dr. Zacharius this semester? I’ve got him for behavior modification, and he’s kind of intimidating, right, but at least his lectures aren’t as hard to follow as Hange’s. I don’t know if you’ve had them, they teach human anatomy and physiology, but oh man–” Sasha continues to chatter right up until she reaches the front of the line, ahead of Annie, and orders her venti salted caramel mocha frappuccino. At Annie’s skeptical expression, the brunette shrugs. “Technically I know that this is going to make my blood pressure skyrocket, and that this much sugar and caffeine pumped into one cup is probably going to make me explode when you factor in the red-eye I had at two o’clock this morning,” she starts to defend herself, only to be cut off by her drink appearing on the counter.

 

“Venti salted caramel mocha frappuccino for ‘Potato Girl’,” calls the barista, Sasha’s longtime friend Connie.

 

“Har har.” She rolls her eyes at the nickname. “You know that’s not what’s written on there.”

 

Connie wiggles his eyebrows at her. “Teasing is one of the many fine services I provide to my exam-exhausted friends,” he says, waving as he goes to make the much tamer Americano that Annie has ordered.

 

“As I was saying,” Sasha turns back to Annie. “I know this is probably going to kill me, but hey, at least that gets me out of finals!”

 

Annie doesn’t reply to this. She merely raises her eyebrows, and Sasha feels her grin get a little broader.

 

 

 

Almost unsurprisingly, they meet at Starbucks again only a week and a half later, on the last day of Dead Week. Sasha feels like a walking corpse, like she should probably have been a cadaver in Hange’s labs, not a student, and it’s not until one hand is firmly curled around her salted caramel sugar overdose that she feels anything even remotely resembling human. She doesn’t walk over to a low table in the darkest corner of the too-bright Starbucks so much as slouch over, and she wasn’t keeping track, but she’s fairly sure her eyes didn’t make it higher than shin-level for the whole walk here from across campus. Because of this, she doesn’t realize that the grey suede couch she flops onto already has one occupant until her head nearly lands in their lap.

 

“It’s you again,” Annie says, typing away unconcernedly at what looks to be either a novel or one hell of a long paper. (Sasha is privately betting on the latter.) “Either you make it a habit to randomly show up in people’s live or I’m just lucky.”

 

Sasha looks up at the blonde from the vicinity of Annie’s thigh, where she can’t be bothered to move from since Annie is, technically speaking, not a stranger. “Just lucky I guess. Though I’m not sure which one of us is luckier.” She tries to throw in a wink, but–

 

Annie continues to type. “You need more sleep. Your eye is twitching.”

 

“I was trying to flirt with you.”

 

“I know. That’s how I can tell you’re sleep deprived, as the only thing you’re managing to do is twitch at a near-stranger.”

 

Sasha tries unsuccessfully to blow her bangs out of her face, then gives up with a sigh and resolves to actually sit up. “So it’s not working, huh?”

 

She’s met with nothing but a straightfaced expression and a sideways glance from Annie’s ice-blue eyes. “Maybe when you’re not half-dead.”

 

That makes Sasha choke on her frappuccino. “W-what? Are you serious?” Annie just shrugs and keeps typing. “So, uh,” Sasha continues, caught off guard but not wanting to press the issue until, as Annie had put it, she wasn’t half-dead. Finals have left dark circles and a dullness to her bright brown eyes, and she doesn’t even bother to look in the mirror in the mornings anymore. Her hair, no doubt, is a mess from being blindly dragged into a ponytail, but at least she’s perfectly capable of brushing her teeth with her eyes closed. “What are you working on?”

 

Annie gives her another sideways glance before explaining her literature paper in the same neutral tone as always.

 

 

 

On the last day of finals, Sasha lingers in Starbucks for hours, but Annie never even walks by, and eventually, Connie quite literally grabs her by the collar and hauls her out into the pouring snow, locking the glass doors behind her as he goes back in. Bummed, Sasha trudges back to her apartment, kicking at the ground along the way and wishing she’d had enough presence of mind to get Annie’s number. “Damn finals,” she mumbles as she turns the key in the lock. “Jean,” she calls, pulling off her soaked hoodie and shaking it vigorously, leaving a puddle of water in the doorway that she’s going to make Jean clean up later, since the sonuvabitch finished his own finals two days ago. “I’m back. Wanna get pizza?”

 

Silence. 

 

“Jean?” Sasha walks down the hall, towards Jean’s room, only to find his door closed. She knocks, but doesn’t move to turn the handle, having learned the hard way that Jean Kirschstein sleeps in the nude more often than not. “Hey, loser, do you wanna get pizza?”

 

There’s the sound of a brief scuffle, some indeterminate shuffling, at least one “ow” that’s almost too deep to be Jean's, and a creak as Jean opens the door. “What, Sash? Is there a reason you’re dripping all over the hallway?”

 

She raises an eyebrow at him. “I asked if you wanted to get pizza, you dork. For like the third time. What’s going on with you? You’ve been all...secretive lately.” At the word secretive, she raises her hands to shoulder level, wiggling her fingers in a way that she thinks suggests mystery.

 

Jean just blinks at her. “You are without a doubt the strangest roommate I’ve ever had. And the guy I lived with freshman year traded sex for chicken nuggets on a regular basis.”

 

“Yeah, well you get paint all over my shit and leave mugs full of paint water that looks like tea strewn around the apartment,” Sasha shoots back. “Are we getting pizza or not, Jean?”

 

“That wouldn’t be a problem if you wouldn’t just drink things without knowing whose or what they are,” Jean mumbles under his breath, before saying, louder, “Fuck yeah. Let’s get pizza. You should. Uh. Change your clothes first, yeah?”

 

Sasha’s mouth twists into a skeptical expression, and she pulls the tie out of her hair to shake the water out of the thick brown locks–directly into Jean’s face. “You tryna get rid of me? Is that it, Jeanny-boy?”

 

“Oh my god, Sasha.” One arm snakes around the doorframe and he gives her a push towards her own room. “Just go take a fucking shower already, I’m getting cold and itchy and uncomfortable just looking at you.”

 

 

 

It’s not until spring semester that Sasha finally catches Annie in Starbucks again, and she’s starting to think that Annie only comes when you’re not looking for her, like clues come to a certain brand of damsel in distress.

 

“Hello, Sasha,” she says simply when she sits down at the brunette’s table, as if it hasn’t been a month of (accidental?) silence between them. “I see you made it through finals. It is, however, slightly concerning that a caffeine and sugar rush is a normal occurrence instead of a stress-choice.”

 

“Annie.” Sasha still looks a little startled to see the blonde actually sitting in front of her. “Didn’t expect to see you here. How was your winter break?”

 

The blonde nods. “It was good. Nice to have some time off from all the paper-writing. I hope yours was relaxing as well.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

There’s a sort of awkward silence for a second, before Annie sighs and relaxes her grip on the drink in front of her. “You’re wondering why you haven’t heard from me.” Again, it’s not a question. Sasha gets the impression that Annie isn’t used to asking questions, or being surprised at anything.

 

"Yeah," Sasha says again. Annie is spot-on, and there's not really anything Sasha can say at this point to further the conversation. Annie must have her reasons, and Sasha has come to realize that no amount of hoping or wheedling will get the words out into the open. She has to wait for Annie to come to her. 

 

Annie's hands and shoulders tense again, and she holds her coffee closer to her chest than she had before. It's the only sign that she's nervous, and Sasha wonders how she got so good at reading the other girl when this is the third time they've met.

 

She sighs before she speaks. “I don’t really know what to tell you.” Annie focuses on the cup in her hands, not meeting Sasha’s eyes as she gets her thoughts in order. “I’m not nervous. But... you make me nervous, Sasha. I think I like you too much.”

 

Sasha chooses not to comment on the last part. If she makes Annie nervous, then she doesn’t want to make it worse. “Okay. Well, I don’t want you to be nervous,” she says, smiling. “So what do you say we just finish our coffee and commiserate about our hellish spring schedules and let whatever this is just lowkey do what it wants, mkay?”

 

It could be a trick of the light, but the corners of Annie’s lips may have just twitched up, ever so slightly. “Okay.”

 

 

 

“Sasha.” Annie’s voice is tinny over the phone. “I need your help. I’m writing a paper on Milan Kundera and need to explain my thesis statement to someone. I was hoping you could come over and make sure I’m making sense.”

 

On her end of the phone, the brunette blinks a few times, pulling the phone away from her ear just to double-check that it really is Annie calling her. The blonde sounds more...emotion-y than usual, and Sasha can’t tell if it’s from the newfound ease they have with each other or low-grade panic at whoever Milan Kundera is. 

 

“Sasha.”

 

She shakes herself out of it. “Yeah, sorry, I’m here. I’d be happy to come listen. When do you want me to come over?”

 

“As soon as you can, preferably. It’s due at the end of the week and this is only my rough draft.”

 

Nodding as she scoops her hoodie off the floor, Sasha is almost too preoccupied to actually give Annie an answer. “Sure,” she finally says, right before the pause gets too long and awkward. “I can head out of here in a few minutes.”

 

“I appreciate it. I’ll see you soon.”

 

“Yeah, see you soon.” They hang up, and Sasha pulls the hoodie over her head, straightening her ponytail as she passes an intently-sketching Jean, fishes her keys out of the bowl by the door, and almost trips over the mat in her struggle to pull her boots over her too-thick socks.

 

She can feel Jean judging her, even though he wasn’t looking up when she entered the room. “You seem to be in a hurry,” he drawls. “Hot date? Also you’ve got your hoodie on inside out, nerd.”

 

Sasha shoots him a look that’s somewhere between chastising and grateful. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m going to help Annie on her literature paper. I’m in a hurry because it’s about three seconds away from raining and I’d like to be on the train when the clouds finally break. Additionally, it is not a date.” She pulls the hoodie over her head and flips it back to the correct side before tugging it back on. “So you can just go jump in a puddle or something.”

 

“The strength of your insults is staggering,” he says dryly. “You cut me to the quick.”

 

“Yeah, yeah. I’m leaving.” She snatches up her messenger back and tucks her keys into a pocket. If Annie’s going to work, Sasha might as well get something done too. “Later, Jean.”

 

He waves to her in farewell, not looking up from his sketch.

 

By the time she actually makes it to Annie’s apartment, the rain has come and gone, and also left Sasha entirely soaked.

 

Annie may never be surprised by anything, but Sasha is completely floored when Annie casually hands her a pair of sweats and a t-shirt and offers to put her wet clothes in the dryer. She almost falls over trying to put on the dry clothes, but it instantly becomes worth it when she sits on Annie’s couch to listen to her paper—Annie takes advantage of Sasha not being a walking puddle and scoots closer, feet tucked up onto the couch cushions and laptop perched on her knees.

 

Not that Sasha’s terribly familiar with literature papers, but she’s pretty sure she’s never heard a better one.

 

 

Sasha tries very hard not to assume it’s her. She asked Connie about it one day, as casually and non-specifically as she could manage, but she’s also pretty sure he could hear the nerves in her voice.

 

Sasha also tries very hard to not talk about it often, because she’s pretty sure Connie thinks she’s imagining things, and when Connie knows something Sasha doesn’t, they get impatient with each other. “I know I promised I’d stop talking about it,” she starts one day while he’s on a break at work, “but I think something is up. I just can’t tell what it is.”

 

He doesn’t look as concerned as Sasha feels, and that just worries her more. “Sash. I’ll just keep telling you the same thing I told you the first time. It seems fine to me.”

 

Sasha sighs in frustration and tugs at her bangs. “I know, but she seems so uncomfortable when someone brings it up and I don’t want to make her feel bad but I also don’t know how else to bring it up.”

 

“Have you considered that maybe she wants you to just bring it up?”

 

“Oh sure.” She crumples up her straw paper and flicks it at Connie. “Hey Annie, wanna talk about why you seem so uncomfortable when my friends talk about their sex lives?”

 

Connie throws a wadded-up paper napkin back at her. “Maybe not that bluntly, dummy. She probably doesn’t know how to address it either. She may not even realize what’s going on.”

 

“What’s going on with who.” As usual, Annie doesn’t ask questions in the form of questions. Connie jumps when her voice sounds from behind him, but Sasha just beams at her, happy to see her even if she is worried that she’s doing something to make Annie uncomfortable.

 

“Annie!” Sasha scoots her chair back from the table and Annie comes over to sit on her lap since it’s a two-person table and all the nearby chairs seem occupied. “We were just talking about how to address things when the other person isn't aware it's happening. Care to weigh in?”

 

Annie raises an eyebrow at Connie. “Someone having girl issues?”

 

Connie just laughs nervously and looks at his bare wrist. “Gosh would you look at that my break is over byeAnniebyeSash!” He vanishes in the flick of a green apron. 

 

Sasha and Annie leave Starbucks not long after that, and Sasha chews over her problem for another two weeks before she settles on a good time to bring it up.

 

 

“Annie,” Sasha says cautiously over a plate of spaghetti one night in Annie’s apartment. “Do my friends make you uncomfortable?”

 

Annie looks over at her, fork hanging in midair. “Uncomfortable? No. Should I be uncomfortable?”

 

“No,” Sasha shakes her head. “I just...You seem a little...reluctant when they talk about their sex lives. Which. Um. They do a lot. I’d just hate to think that you feel awkward around them because of something they can easily shut up about.”

 

Quietly, not taking her eyes off Sasha, Annie puts her fork down. “It’s fine. Sasha, it’s fine.” Sasha said nothing, unconvinced, and apparently it showed on her face. “It just doesn’t usually come up because it’s no one’s business.”

 

“What? What’s no one’s business?”

 

“The fact that I’m asexual.” Annie doesn’t look nervous to say this, and Sasha feels immense relief that it’s not something she’s done that’s making Annie feel awkward. “It’s just not something I normally tell people because it’s not their business and it’s rarely relevant,” Annie continues. “But then again, I’ve never really had someone like you for it to be relevant to.”

 

Sasha’s ears home in on something Annie specified. “Someone like me?”

 

It looks like Annie is honest-to-god  _ blushing, _ which is not something Sasha has ever seen her do in all the time that’s passed since they met in Starbucks. “Yeah. Someone who’s like...my girlfriend or something. Or maybe could be.”

 

“Is that what I am? Your girlfriend?”

 

“If you want to be.” Annie says this simply, like Sasha could also walk out right now if she wanted to.

 

If, of course, she actually wanted to. “I guess that’s what I am, then,” she tells Annie, a little sheepishly but happier than she could ever put words to.

 

They go back to spaghetti night, sitting a little closer to each other on Annie’s floor than they had been just minutes ago and both smiling between bites. Without saying anything, Annie just lays her legs across Sasha’s lap; Sasha just adjusts her plate to sit on Annie’s shins and loves every second of it.

 

It takes a minute for Annie to say anything else. “It doesn’t bother you, then.”

 

“What?” Sasha looks over at Annie, startled.

 

“Me being asexual.”

 

“Why would it?”

 

“I don’t feel sexual attraction. To anyone.” Sasha watches her think about the next words out of her mouth. “Not even you. Does that bother you?” It’s an actual, honest question, and Sasha hates that this is something that might bother Annie. Silently, she swears to herself that she’ll do everything she can to make sure it never plagues her again.

 

“Not even a little bit.”

 

Annie looks as happy as Sasha feels.

 

 

Sometimes, things happen and it pisses Sasha off. One of their friends who’s really more like an acquaintance will make some joke that hides judgement, not even about Annie or Annie-and-Sasha, but in general. Sasha doesn’t stand for it, and it may have gotten her some strange looks, but she doesn’t stop defending not just Annie, but everyone else who’s got no interest in a sex life.

 

Annie gives Sasha one of her rare smiles, burying her face in the crook of her girlfriend’s neck as they stand outside Sasha’s apartment. “Thank you.”

 

Sasha kisses the top of Annie’s blonde head and turns they key in the lock of her apartment door. “For what?”

 

“Understanding. Not everyone does.”

 

“What?” Sasha pushes the door open and leads Annie inside. “That ridiculous, what’s not to understand? So you don’t feel sexually attracted to anyone, what does that have to do with any of them? The way I see it, it’s no one’s business but yours and your significant other’s, and in this case that’s me, and I’m certainly not offended–”

 

She’s cut off by the sight of Jean’s distinctive undercut as it hovers over the back edge of the sofa, which Sasha fervently thanks God for giving her the idea to turn it so it faces away from the door, because this is not the first time she’s walked in and heard someone moaning while the couch shakes.

 

Talk about terrible timing.

 

“Jesus  _ Christ, _ Jean, do you  _ have _ to always have sex in the damn living room?! You have a bedroom! With a door and everything!” There’s a squeak that definitely does not come from Jean, who looks up at his roommate, startled and apparently pretty out of it, if the way he struggles to focus is any indication.

 

When he does finally process what he’s seeing, he goes wide-eyed and blushes like a Victorian girl at her first dance. “Shit, Sasha! I, uh...hi?”

 

Sasha fumes, and Annie just stands there, cool as ever. “What the hell, man? That’s the third time now! You’re just lucky I decided to move the sofa so the whole hallway doesn’t get a peek!” While Sasha shouts at her embarrassed roommate, there’s another squeak from somewhere around the vicinity of Jean’s feet, where his...ahem... _ friend _ must be hiding. “And you! You can come on out of there and stand up now, I know you’re there, the floor doesn’t usually squeak while Jean holds a throw pillow over his junk.”

 

There are a few seconds of tense silence in which Jean’s face flames like a bonfire and his eyes get even wider. Slowly, slowly, there comes the sound of movement, and a tall, freckly guy with dark hair is then standing next to Jean, looking equally, if not more, embarrassed as Sasha’s roommate.

 

Continuing the circle of bizarre, it’s Annie who speaks next. 

 

“Bertholdt?” It’s the most surprised Sasha has ever heard her. “You’re the last person I expected to see here.”

 

Sasha turns on her girlfriend. “You know him?”

 

Annie nods. “This is my brother’s ex.” She shrugs.

 

Jean speaks up again, only slightly more put together than a few seconds ago. “Wait,” he turns to Bertholdt. “You dated Reiner?”

 

“I-I, uh...” Bertholdt starts to sweat. “I wouldn’t call it dating, exactly...”

 

Sasha, waving her hands wildly, interjects again, spitting out nonsense syllables until she’s got everyone’s attention. “Hold on, hold on. You,” she points at Bertholdt, “are Annie’s brother’s ex. That much I got. But how in the hell do you,” her wild gaze turns on her roommate, “know Annie’s brother?”

 

Jean looks somewhere between sheepish and stunned, and he mumbles under his breath. 

 

“What was that?”

 

“...I said Annie and Reiner are my cousins.”

 

For a split second, Sasha thinks she needs to sit down, before remembering what the poor couch has just gone through and rapidly reconsidering. Instead, she leans heavily against the doorframe. “What the hell.”  _ Note to self, _ she thinks as the four of them stand in awkward silence in the living room of the apartment.  _ Never  _ ever _  let anything like this happen  _ ever _ again. _

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on [tumblr.](http://revelationoh.tumblr.com) I don't bite! unless you're a slice of pizza, in which case you should run and how are you even on a computer


End file.
